Tax Refunds for Polish Workers in Ireland: Four Years You Probably Never Claimed

Being an EU citizen changes less than you'd think

As a Polish citizen you don't need an employment permit, you don't have a stamp, and you can change jobs freely. That's a real advantage over non-EU colleagues.

For tax, it changes almost nothing.

Irish tax residence is decided by days in the country — 183 in a tax year, or 280 across two years provided you were here more than 30 days in the current one. Your citizenship doesn't enter the test. You get the same credits, the same rate bands, and the same reliefs as an Irish citizen, and you have the same obligation to claim them yourself. Revenue sets this out on its tax residence page.

The one place free movement genuinely helps is speed: you can generally get a PPSN and start work faster than someone waiting on a permit. Which means you're less likely to have spent months on emergency tax, and more likely to have quietly overpaid for years in a different way.

Why long-settled workers are the biggest under-claimers

Nobody at Revenue is going to write to you about the Rent Tax Credit. Your employer doesn't know what you spent at the dentist. Your payroll department has no idea whether your spouse is working.

Ireland's PAYE system taxes your salary correctly and stops there. Everything else — rent, medical costs, tuition, occupational expenses, how your credits are split between a married couple — depends on you telling Revenue. And the longer you've been here without doing that, the more has accumulated.

The specific gaps we see most in long-settled households:

• The Rent Tax Credit, which only started in 2022 and which many long-term renters have never heard of.
• Medical expenses across a whole family, never pooled into one claim.
• Joint assessment never elected, or elected once and never revisited when one spouse's income changed.
• Flat Rate Expenses for the occupation — a fixed annual allowance requiring no receipts, which most people have never checked.
• Tuition fees for a child in third level.

Four years, stacked: a concrete example

Say you've been in Ireland since 2015, earning €45,000, renting a family home in Dublin with your spouse and two children. Your spouse works part-time on a low income. You've never filed an Income Tax Return, because nothing ever seemed wrong.

Here's what four open years look like:

Two things to notice.

The Rent Tax Credit is worth different amounts in different years. €500 for 2022 and 2023, €1,000 from 2024 onwards. If you've seen "€1,000 a year" quoted flatly, that's the current figure applied backwards to years where it didn't apply. Jointly assessed couples get double those amounts. Full detail in the Rent Tax Credit guide.

The medical figure is the one people leave behind. €800 a year across a family of four is unremarkable — a few GP visits, prescriptions, a physiotherapy course. Individually each receipt looks too small to bother with, which is exactly why the four-year total never gets claimed. Note that non-routine dental needs a Form Med 2 signed by your dentist, and you can only claim what your insurance didn't reimburse. See medical expenses tax relief.

And that's before joint assessment. Where one spouse earns significantly less, part of their rate band and their unused credits can transfer to the higher earner — often worth over a thousand euro a year on its own. It has to be elected with Revenue; it does not happen by itself.

The full list of what's typically missed is in the top Irish tax deductions you could be missing.

Property and income still in Poland

Ireland and Poland have had a Double Taxation Agreement since 13 November 1995, based on the OECD model and covering income including capital gains. It's since been modified by the Multilateral Convention (MLI).

That treaty is genuinely useful — but it doesn't operate automatically. The two situations that come up most:

You kept a flat in Poland and rent it out. That's Polish-source income which can also be within the Irish net once you're Irish tax resident. The treaty and a foreign tax credit resolve the overlap, but you have to claim the credit and evidence the Polish tax paid — and it's capped at the Irish tax attributable to that income. A Polish payslip or bank statement usually isn't sufficient documentation on its own.

You're thinking about selling it. This is where being long-settled matters. Once you've been Irish tax resident for three consecutive years you become ordinarily resident, and someone who is resident or ordinarily resident is within the charge to Irish CGT on assets wherever they're located — including a property in Kraków or Wrocław. Ordinary residence also continues for three years after you stop being resident, so moving back to Poland doesn't immediately end the exposure.

If you own property in Poland, get the position checked before you sell, not after. The residence framework is in moving to Ireland: how cross-border taxes work.

Inheritance from Poland — the one nobody expects

This is the issue we see arriving most often in this community now, and almost nobody sees it coming.

Irish Capital Acquisitions Tax can apply to an inheritance from Poland. Broadly, CAT comes into charge where the person giving the asset is Irish resident or ordinarily resident, or where the beneficiary is, or where the property is in Ireland. So if your parents in Poland leave you a flat or savings, and you are Irish tax resident, that inheritance can be within the Irish tax net even though your parents never set foot in Ireland.

Two things make this bite:

• CAT is charged to you, the beneficiary — not to the estate. Nobody deducts it before the money reaches you and no Polish notary settles it for you.
• The Group A threshold for a child inheriting from a parent is €400,000, with anything above taxed at 33%. That sounds generous until you consider a Warsaw or Kraków property plus savings, and the fact that the threshold is a lifetime cumulative total covering everything received from parents since 5 December 1991.

You must also file a Form IT38 where what you've received exceeds 80% of your threshold, even if no tax is ultimately due.

How Poland treats the same inheritance is a separate question governed by Polish law, and one for a Polish adviser. What we can tell you is that assuming the Irish side is automatically clear because the assets are Polish is the mistake that costs the most. The mechanics are in inheritance tax in Ireland, and if there's a foreign estate involved, that's what our VIP Premium service is for.

Your ZUS years and your PRSI years

One thing worth knowing even though it isn't a refund: your Polish social insurance record and your Irish PRSI record are not lost by moving between the two countries.

Under EU social security coordination, contribution periods in different member states can be taken into account together when you eventually claim a State Pension, rather than each country looking only at its own record. That matters enormously for someone who worked in Poland until 2006 and in Ireland since.

Two practical points: PRSI isn't refundable through the process described in this guide — it's income tax and USC that get reviewed — and your PRSI record is worth checking periodically for gaps, because gaps are much easier to address before you retire than after.

What you need before you claim

Gather these first and the whole thing takes about twenty minutes:

• Your PPSN.
• myAccount access — registration needs your PPSN, date of birth, and either MyGovID or a posted verification code.
• Your IBAN, entered in your Revenue profile. Revenue pays by transfer only.
• Your Employment Detail Summary for each year, downloadable from myAccount. It's built from what employers reported to Revenue directly, so you don't need old payslips and it doesn't matter if a former employer has closed.
• Medical receipts for the whole household, plus Form Med 2 for any non-routine dental work.
• Your RT number and landlord details if you rent.
• Documentation of Polish tax paid, if you're claiming a foreign tax credit — ideally from the Polish tax authority rather than a payer.
• Your spouse's income details, if you're looking at joint assessment.

If you'd rather not reconstruct four years of household paperwork yourself, our Tax Back service reviews every open year and every relief. No refund, no fee.

One deadline that actually matters

You can claim four years at a time. As of 2026 that's 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 — each needing its own return.

The 2022 year closes permanently on 31 December 2026. After that it's gone, regardless of what you were owed.

If you've been here fifteen years and never filed a return, don't start with last year. Start with 2022, because it's the only one with a clock on it. And if you're thinking about moving back to Poland, do the whole review before you go — while you still have an Irish bank account and active myAccount access. See leaving Ireland and the refund you might be owed.

Questions we get asked

I've been here twelve years and my tax has always looked correct. Is there really anything to claim?

Very likely, yes — and precisely because nothing has gone wrong. Correct PAYE deductions and unclaimed reliefs are two different things. Your payroll can be perfect for a decade while the Rent Tax Credit, family medical expenses and joint assessment all sit unclaimed.

I rent out my old flat in Poland. Do I have to declare it in Ireland?

If you're Irish tax resident, foreign rental income can be within scope here as well as in Poland. The treaty and a foreign tax credit prevent you being taxed twice on the same profit, but the credit has to be claimed and documented, and it's capped at the Irish tax on that income.

My parents in Poland are leaving me their house. Will I pay Irish tax on it?

Possibly. Irish CAT can apply to a foreign inheritance where the beneficiary is Irish resident or ordinarily resident. The Group A threshold is €400,000 as a lifetime cumulative figure, with 33% above it, and a Form IT38 is required once you exceed 80% of the threshold even if no tax is due. How Poland treats it is a question for a Polish adviser — but don't assume the Irish side is automatically clear.

My children were born here. Does that change anything for my tax?

Not their citizenship, no. But children do open up reliefs worth checking — medical expenses paid on their behalf, third-level tuition fees when the time comes, and credits available to single parents or to a household where one spouse cares for children at home. These all have to be claimed.

Can I still claim if I've moved back to Poland?

Yes, within four years of the end of each tax year, and myAccount works from anywhere. The usual obstacle is a closed Irish bank account — resolve payable bank details before you file.

If you've been working in Ireland since 2022 or earlier and have never filed an Income Tax Return, open myAccount and request the Statement of Liability for 2022 first. That's the year with a deadline.

Related reading

• Rent Tax Credit Ireland guide
• Medical expenses tax relief in Ireland
• Inheritance tax in Ireland: CAT explained